Floods in the United Arab Emirates: Dubai sinks into chaos

Heavy rainfall has flooded the United Arab Emirates for days. Up to 260 millimeters of rain fell in Dubai on Tuesday, more than two-years worth of rainfall. Dubai International Airport was out of action for hours. Roads, residential areas and city centers were flooded. Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia also reported heavy rainfall.

Meteorologists reported several severe storms. Such masses of rain are unusual for the dry desert region, and many roads do not have an adequate sewage network. The state news agency WAM called the rain on Tuesday "a historic weather event" that "surpasses anything documented since the start of data collection in 1949."

Numerous passengers were stranded at Dubai International Airport. Aircraft crews were barely able to reach the airport and providing safe flight operations was not possible due to the masses of water. Hundreds of flights had to be diverted. Paul Griffiths, managing director of the airport, cannot remember "ever having seen such conditions."

Tanker trucks pump water from flooded streets in Sharjah. In Dubai, schools were closed before the heavy rainfall began; many professionals worked from home. The floods were caused by an unusually strong low-pressure system that triggered numerous heavy thunderstorms, according to Jeff Masters, a meteorologist at Yale Climate Connections.

Entire business districts and residential areas of the dazzling metropolis in the Gulf are also affected. In Dubai, where a dry, scorching heat usually drives people into the air-conditioned shopping malls, pedestrians are now making their way through the knee-deep water.

Parts of the 12-lane Sheikh Zayed Road, a major highway that runs through Dubai, were quickly flooded. Cars laboriously plowed through the masses of water. In Ras al-Khaimah, the country's northernmost emirate, a 70-year-old man died when his vehicle was swept away by the floods.

In Oman, on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, at least 19 people were killed by heavy rainfall, including 10 schoolchildren. Experts are warning of an increase in extreme weather events in the Gulf. The Abu Dhabi-based newspaper The National wrote in an editorial that the heavy rainfall was a warning to the countries in the region to "climate-proof their futures."